WoW's battlegrounds - bordering the absurd

[HRose]

It's been a couple of weeks since the tests server were launched. There are a few threads around but, in general, the BGs have been completely unplayable because of problems both in the execution and the design.

The Alterac BG has been disabled till yesterday because severely broken in a number of aspects. The CTF BG worked slightly better but was completely unplayable due to the flag vanishing.

Now they patched a new version. You'd expect them to fix something?

No, they broke things even more. It's hilarious.

Not only they didn't fix the durability hit on the equipment and the flags vanishing and all the other problems and design issue already reported and discussed ad nauseam. But they also managed to severely nerf the Contribution Points you gain from winning a CTF game.

Before this last patch you gained 1600 CPs for each victory (three flags returned). The reward was good and it encouraged the players to fight for the victory (well, if the flags didn't vanish). This because only one faction won those points in the case of a victory.

So I'd say that between ALL the broken parts of these BGs, this definitely was one of the few that worked.

Guess what? They didn't fixed anything but they broke the only point that worked.

Now they do not reward anymore for a victory in the CTF. They reward just for each flag returned. How much? 68 CPs. No really.

That's 166 points if you finish the BGs. LESS than a single kill.

This means that, you know, playing the CTF game is now completely USELESS. You just go there, leech kills in solo for a bit till the diminished returns are off and then jump on another instance searching for new opponents. That's the behaviour that this system is rewarding and encouraging.

Not only. The devs have stated again that the diminished returns for the points won't be removed.

The idea is working so well that the players are learning that going solo in a BG instead of forming groups is consistently more efficent.

A masterpiece.

[pogozorro]

Nice trolling, except one of the designers said that the reduced CP was a bug and would be fixed.

[HRose]

Nice trolling, except one of the designers said that the reduced CP was a bug and would be fixed.
Where?

[Hanzii]

Oh noes, something on a test-server isn't working completely!

The bastard should run a test-testserver!!!

[HRose]

Oh noes, something on a test-server isn't working completely!

The bastard should run a test-testserver!!!
That's not it. After two weeks of test I was expecting to see some fixes instead of the system even more borken.

*IF* this last change is a result of a bug, the thread has no reason to exist if not for blaming their internal testers since something SO GLARING should slip through. I mean, that's not a minor bug hard to spot.

The point is the the whole design is so broken that I'm starting to have problems to discern between an obvious bug and a conscious change.

[Chowhound]

On that thought, after more than 5 years in development, I expected a perfect game with no bugs, flaws, or exploits, and everything perfectly balanced.

[Jason Becker]

Yes this is horrible that they have broken the game like this....ohh wait this is on the test server and isn't affecting actual play at all...Guess I should have looked closer at who the thread starter was... :roll:

[JamesL]

Christ, guys, lay off him a little. While it is less valid to complain about a test server, the test server will usually give you a pretty good idea about what's going into the game next, so he does have valid points - especially if some of the things he mentioned aren't just bugs.

On that thought, after more than 5 years in development, I expected a perfect game with no bugs, flaws, or exploits, and everything perfectly balanced.

Well, one can always strive. It's pointless to say, when you're designing a game, "well, a game can never be perfect" and using that as an excuse to not at least try to make it perfect.

[GuildBoss]

Yes this is horrible that they have broken the game like this....ohh wait this is on the test server and isn't affecting actual play at all...Guess I should have looked closer at who the thread starter was... :roll:

Guess where it goes when testing is done?

[Duality]

Then isn't the time to bitch when testing is ended?

[Super_D]

Then isn't the time to bitch when testing is ended?

Shouldn't you point out flaws in testing, rather than waiting until after testing is done?

[Ryan A]

I think people just like to pick on HRose. The guy is pretty easy to hate, after all. At first I thought he was a foreign version of Koontz, but he's worse... some Koontz posts are genuinely entertaining to read. And while Koontz may be self referential, at least he doesn't post links to his self-proclaimed omniscient blog.

[McBain]

I think it's funny that HRose (for once) actually has some legitimate, well-thought-out points that are pretty easy to agree with...

... and he's getting flamed worse than usual.

BGs are supposed to be coming out in a week or two, and are a total debacle at the moment.

P.S. Anyone want to buy my account? Pimped out 60 Shaman and decently equipped 60 Warrior. PvP Server -- same one as the Leeroy Jenkins fuckers. Going cheap.

[olaf]

Seriously at this point I dont see how anyone can defend Blizzard. If you think they are doing the best they can or even that they are making a reasonable effort then you have incredibly low standards. They have sold over a million copies now and have been collecting monthly fees for months now and what the fuck? Still tons of problems and missing features:

Zero new raid instances. None. EQ did better than this in 1999!

No Battlegrounds. Pretty shitty for a feature that was supposed to have been in at release.

A Broken PvP scoring system where DPS>all. www.gankcentral.com

No real post 60 character development. Where are hero classes? Not even on the horizon.

I think class balance is still nowhere near being done especially considering the stupid scoring system. Most classes have at least 1 of their 3 talent trees that cant hold a candle to one of the other two.

Their itemization sucks. Its like the people doing them are working in solitary confinement and slide their proposals out under the door whereupon they are implemented without being checked against existing drops at all. Caster gear still blows, they learned nothing from EQ on how to make gear interesting for casters.

Massive population imbalances that have not even *begun* to be addressed. They have their head lodged firmly in the sand on this one, refusing to even admit it is a real problem. Worse than 2 to 1 A:H average on PvE/RP servers. www.warcraftrealms.com

Their forums suck. Their CS sucks. Their GMs suck. They suck. They had the makings of a great game on their hands and they didnt just drop the ball they lost it completely.

olaf

edit: "Zero new raid instances. None. EQ did better than this in 1999!" To clarify, EQ had no instances for a long ass time and so Blizzard adding Kazzak/Azuregos in 6 months is about the same pace SOE was on with their post release end game content for EQ in 99.

[Jason McMaster]

This from the guy who offered to buy a beta account or trade anything he owned for it.

[olaf]

This from the guy who offered to buy a beta account or trade anything he owned for it.
Yeah which ought to tell you something. I was a huge fan of the game during most of the beta, the first half especially. The game was great up to 60, IS great up to 60. Then it just...changes and Blizzard has been a horrible steward of it.

But uh, just to clarify, what I was offering for a beta account was not anything I owned. It was just a lot of games that I was no longer playing. And no one took me up on the offer (to sell/trade it to me) so there were other people here who obviously placed great value on it.

olaf

[stusser]

Oh no way, bitching about a MMOG's customer service? (Devs of game I'm playing right now) broke the chain of great CS in every other MMOG? And the endgame is boring? And there are assholes playing with you? And you hate the smarmy worthless community representatives with a passion? And it's buggy as hell, particularly with your (class/build) and they fix everybody else's (class/build) while nerfing yours every patch? Impossible!

I can't fuckin' believe it, how could (game I'm playing right now) be so different from (the last game I burned out on long enough ago to forget how it really was)?!?

How could they mess all these things up when everybody else got it so right? It can't be true!!! Hell no!

Not in (game I'm playing right now)!

[Rywill]

Re: HRose. I'm going to wait and see what the BGs look like at release. It's certainly valid to talk about the problems in the test realm, and the problems you're mentioning are totally legitimate (I haven't played on test, but I see what you're saying). Tell it to Blizzard feedback. It is NOT really valid to complain about it here as if the BGs had been released--yeah, it's fine to say "as they are on test they suck," but the tone of the post is that Blizzard has yet again dropped the ball and fucked everything up, as if the BGs were already live. They aren't, and that's what people are reacting to in his post. Save the bile until they are. Especially if your big complaint is something that they have acknolwedged is a mistake. The frustrated-armchair-designer act is wearing a little thin, at least for me. People get sick of the way every time there's a bug--on TEST!--you roll in here to decry how stupid Blizzard is and how much better the game would be if you had designed it.

Re: olaf. Please, for the love of God, just quit already. WoW is not for everyone, and if you hate it so much, just go do something else. Stop torturing yourself, and stop torturing us with your over-the-top crazyman posts. I mean, about half of the complaints you made have some basis (e.g., problems with some class talent trees, problems with PvP scoring), but balance that against a game that is, in thousands of other respects, much better than any MMO before or since and even looks better than most games on the horizon. Give it a rest. The game is clearly not perfect. But the game is damn good, an excellent value for the money, and Blizzard is working on almost every problem you identified. Hate the post-60 content? Start an alt, you freaking idiot. Or, like I said, quit. You paid $125 and got six months worth of computer gaming. Be happy and move on to greener pastures.

[Poops McGee]

http://img138.echo.cx/img138/8545/mmorpgclippy8eh.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)

[olaf]

Dont you think the genre should make strides? Blizzard seems to have missed or ignored a lot of important lessons that EQ/SOE learned the hard way.

You seem to be excusing them simply because everyone else makes the same mistakes?

olaf

[stusser]

Excusing? Nature of the beast man, MMOGs all suck. You burned out and now it's time to quit. Don't drag it out.

[Rywill]

I'm not. I do think the industry should make strides. I keep a close eye on every non-fantasy MMO, for example, and I'm always interested in stuff like Guild Wars' non-fee model. I could list hundreds of improvements I'd like to see in future MMOs. But WoW IS a stride, a huge stride, at least IMO. I've played tons of MMOs, and WoW is by far the best one I've ever played. It's better than EQ1 and DAOC in dozens of ways. It solves a huge number of problems that have plagued the genre since its inception.

More importantly, it's a fun game. I've had it since release day, and I still play it all the time and really enjoy it a lot. Whether it does or doesn't advance the genre--and you and I can just agree to disagree on that--the point is that it's a really fun game and a great value at $15 a month. Or at least, I think it is. Like I said, it's not for everyone and some folks just plain hate it, which is obviously their prerogative. But it's perverse to hate it that much and yet continue to play and subscribe to it.

[ciparis]

Oh noes, something on a test-server isn't working completely!

The bastard should run a test-testserver!!!
That's not it. After two weeks of test I was expecting to see some fixes instead of the system even more borken.

It would seem their development schedule doesn't agree with your expectations.

[mouselock]

Oh noes, something on a test-server isn't working completely!

The bastard should run a test-testserver!!!
That's not it. After two weeks of test I was expecting to see some fixes instead of the system even more borken.

It would seem their development schedule doesn't agree with your expectations.

Well, to be fair, one would expect that a patch, regardless of development schedule, ought to fix things. Or at least more than it breaks. It's kind of implied by the name "patch".

[olaf]

I'm not. I do think the industry should make strides. I keep a close eye on every non-fantasy MMO, for example, and I'm always interested in stuff like Guild Wars' non-fee model. I could list hundreds of improvements I'd like to see in future MMOs. But WoW IS a stride, a huge stride, at least IMO. I've played tons of MMOs, and WoW is by far the best one I've ever played. It's better than EQ1 and DAOC in dozens of ways. It solves a huge number of problems that have plagued the genre since its inception.

More importantly, it's a fun game. I've had it since release day, and I still play it all the time and really enjoy it a lot. Whether it does or doesn't advance the genre--and you and I can just agree to disagree on that--the point is that it's a really fun game and a great value at $15 a month. Or at least, I think it is. Like I said, it's not for everyone and some folks just plain hate it, which is obviously their prerogative. But it's perverse to hate it that much and yet continue to play and subscribe to it.
I think you are misreading my rantings. I do enjoy some parts of the game still. What I go on and on about, or at least what I am trying to get across when I see people defending their missteps at every turn, is how much better of a job I think they could/should be doing with the resources and history lessons at their disposal.

olaf

[Jason Becker]

Yes this is horrible that they have broken the game like this....ohh wait this is on the test server and isn't affecting actual play at all...Guess I should have looked closer at who the thread starter was... :roll:

Guess where it goes when testing is done?

Wow hard question there guy. Lemme guess the regular servers? Is the testing finished yet? Is this the final version? I guess I missed the part were this is the final version of battlegrounds and its going live as it is now...[/quote]

[markv]

I'd have to agree with olaf on the fact that Blizzard should be doing far better addressing the issues / ensuring some of these issues never came up, than they are currently doing.

olaf is correct when he talks about the 60 game and once you hit there and have done everything - a total of seven areas, which don't take long to do - is lacking in major ways. The problem wouldn't be so extreme if it wasn't so easy to level up to that point, or if people had things to strive for afterwards like Hero Class, AA's or something. That was something very notable in EQ, and something Blizzard should have prepared for from the start.

Couple that with the fact that they said there would be a well established end game and battlegrounds would be out when the game went final and you can see why people are disenchanted with the whole lvl 60 aspect of the game.

I had a blast from 1 - 59, and although people would say I went through it quickly because I got 60 in about 6 weeks, I did every instance and all the quests for those instances along the way and followed the story line. What I've done to limit my boredom was try and start a mage, though once I get in to the 50's it's not easy finding a group on a PvE server on horde side because of the population imbalance. Since that didn't work I only log on once a week or so, get dragged to Scholomance (which is the bane of my existance in that game) and then log off annoyed that the loot tables for the work required still blow ass even after all the changes.

I'm hoping after the Battlegrounds focus is complete that they'll go back to working on the end game focus, as it is in dire need of it. Though I honestly think that with the kind of subscription base they have right now they could easily afford to have two teams working at once - one on the battlegrounds aspect while the other group focuses on the PvE portion of it.

[Mark Asher]

Dont you think the genre should make strides? Blizzard seems to have missed or ignored a lot of important lessons that EQ/SOE learned the hard way.

You seem to be excusing them simply because everyone else makes the same mistakes?

olaf

I think WoW's the best MMO I've played so far. I had a great time in beta and a great time in the retail version.

I don't think any of these games are ever going to be bug-free, have great class balance, have fascinating endgames, great customer service, massages boards where more than .001% of the posts get replies, etc.

No matter how good one of these games is, there will always be a loud and vehement group of players complaining about the game.

Anyway, if you're unhappy playing the game, play a different one. EQ's still there. EQ2 is getting a lot of attention by SOE. Lots of choices out there.

[Xaroc]

No matter how good one of these games is, there will always be a loud and vehement group of players complaining about the game.


I think this is largely true but I also think if they bothered to look at what they are doing for 5 minutes they would realize they aren't going about things in a logical way. Bug fixes for example. Blizzard seemed to go out of their way to fix all the helpful bugs to classes first but not fix the ones that are annoying to players when it really doesn't matter which order you fix them in. If you give people something before you take something away (even if it is a bug) you build up goodwill and it doesn't even cost you anything beyond a bit of foresight and planning. This is common sense 101 and I see MMO companies do stupid stuff like this all the time and they never learn.

Oh and this isn't just Blizzard, Mythic loves to thrown in giant overzealous game changing nerfs and not do any other balancing. Then to add insult to injury they would change it back a year later after most people who were affected by it had left the game or weren't even playing that class anymore. Two things to take away from this is don't make giant sweeping changes and if you screw up and do make some really unbalanced descisions don't wait a freaking year to change them back. Again common sense 101.

Overall, you can't make everyone happy but you can avoid being stupid in the first place or at least fix your mistakes quickly. That can go a long way towards making more of the playerbase happy.

-- Xaroc

[Alan Dunkin]

You do realize it's not just about fixing classes of bugs based on how when it matters the order you fix them in? Fixing bugs in a MMO can be a massive, daunting, time-consuming venture that can have far-reaching problems that goes far beyond your convenience.

I find it amusing that people complain about things getting broken on a test server. Or getting more broken. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and try to figure out exactly what a Test server is.

And, on top of that, it does anyone no good if you complain about it on here - I'm sure the Blizzard devs scan every post on this board and make changes based on relevance.

It does seem more of an egotistical trolling venture. The WoW test server new things are broken, even more broken now, look at me, I'm right and I'm telling you why.

--- Alan

[markv]

I find it amusing that people complain about things getting broken on a test server. Or getting more broken. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and try to figure out exactly what a Test server is.

I think the people get bent out of shape about things being broken on the test server is that there are quite often times when those broken issues then get transferred over to the live server, and then just piss everyone off when it was obvious it was an issue before hand.

I think a great example of that would be the patch where they introduced being stuck in combat mode when you weren't even near anyone nor in combat at the time. It was a well known problem on the test server, and it was not addressed and still went live. Needless to say it sure pissed a great many people off.

What people look at is past track records, and honestly Blizzards track record since going live has, quite frankly, sucked more ass than I would have thought possible. Here's to hoping it improves, but either way I'll keep playing until I'm bored of it, and here's to hoping I don't because it is a good game overall.

[soundnfury]

I feel the same as olaf and HRose, and I think it's interesting how strong my passion for WoW remains even a month after I've quit. Levels 1-59 were so good, because Blizzard showed they'd learned something from EQ and the rest of the MMORPGs, but the endgame felt like a betrayal.

Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just talks about the higher standard to which we hold the beautiful accountable, and I think that this (oft perceived as inappropriate) anger against WoW and Blizzard falls into that category. We (HRose, olaf, myself, and others, I'm sure) want perfection, and when Blizzard misses slightly, we're a thousand times angrier than if they'd put out a mediocre product to begin with.

[Alan Dunkin]

Well if that's the case I can understand a certain frustration; the problem is that the test server and live servers (or internal live or internal test) that while theoretically may be the same, may not generate the same problems. It kind of depends on how it is patched honestly and how they treat the server.

--- Alan

[HRose]

*IF* this last change is a result of a bug, the thread has no reason to exist
Just requoting myself.

I criticize a lot about both the Honor System and the implementation of the Battlegrounds. Some problems are absolutely objective and widely acknowledged everywhere like the durability hit on the equipment, the flags disappearing and so on, other problems and considerations are mine specifically and are less easy to discover because more eradicated into the system and harder to explain.

When I post about something it's mostly to underline those parts that I know won't be noticed or discussed, in fact, most of the players will just ignore what I say. Because I'm a voice outside the chorus.

The point is, again, that I don't know anymore what's a bug and what's a deliberate design choice since I consider the system broken on a number of aspects. So I could expect that the flags won't vanish when the BGs will be released but I'm sure that most of my other critics will remain unquestioned.

That's all. Once they confirm that something is a bug, I'm happy and I'm done. But it's when the design choices are broken and intentional that I have the interest to start a discussion.

I won't say a thing if I'm confident that the issues will be worked out. The fact is that I hate the current Honor System already as it exists on the live servers. So I have my reasons to underline those issues that aren't so obvious and that they are ignoring.

[stusser]

Just requoting myself.
It's awfully out of character for you to point back to something you said before. Are you sure you're OK, HRose?

[TriggerHappy]

Sheesh, people. The original post was about an impending design decision, not a bug. I thought it was fairly obvious, guess not.

[solomani]

It's been a couple of weeks since the tests server were launched. There are a few threads around but, in general, the BGs have been completely unplayable because of problems both in the execution and the design.



ummm I guess thats why its on a TEST server. Why whine about something that is at least a month away from release (if not longer).

[McBain]

Did you even read his goddamn post? No, wait, don't answer that question.

The devs have stated again that the diminished returns for the points won't be removed.


He was pointing out a DESIGN decision -- and a glaringly stupid one, to boot. Also, experience tells us that most of the problems introduced on the test server *do* carry over to the regular servers.

[Angie Gallant]

It's been a couple of weeks since the tests server were launched. There are a few threads around but, in general, the BGs have been completely unplayable because of problems both in the execution and the design.



ummm I guess thats why its on a TEST server. Why whine about something that is at least a month away from release (if not longer).

So it doesn't get released. It's on a test server so it can be evaluated.

[solomani]

It's been a couple of weeks since the tests server were launched. There are a few threads around but, in general, the BGs have been completely unplayable because of problems both in the execution and the design.



ummm I guess thats why its on a TEST server. Why whine about something that is at least a month away from release (if not longer).

So it doesn't get released. It's on a test server so it can be evaluated.

Exactly. Its under testing. I think burning Blizz for something that isnt live yet is a bit pre-mature.

[JamesL]

Exactly. Its under testing. I think burning Blizz for something that isnt live yet is a bit pre-mature.

It's like a beta of new features.

If no beta testers criticized the game, then the beta is pointless, right?

[Mister Widget]

I think it's interesting how strong my passion for WoW remains even a month after I've quit. Levels 1-59 were so good, because Blizzard showed they'd learned something from EQ and the rest of the MMORPGs, but the endgame felt like a betrayal.

That about sums it up for me as well. The game starts off so well, with so many nice touches that make you feel like the game was a labor of love. Then you get to level 60 and suddenly WoW is a carbon copy of EQ. Find a guild, gather up a set of gear after many raids, proceed to the next zone and find out it's time to replace all that gear with a new set of gear... lather rinse repeat. Been there, done that.

I'l be interested to see how the Battlefields turn out.

Also, experience tells us that most of the problems introduced on the test server *do* carry over to the regular servers.

Exactly. If a change makes it to the test server, the only chance it has of not going live is if either
A) It turns out to crash the server on a regular basis.
B) There's a huge uproar among players about it.

[soundnfury]

Then you get to level 60 and suddenly WoW is a carbon copy of EQ.

...

If a change makes it to the test server, the only chance it has of not going live is if either
A) It turns out to crash the server on a regular basis.
B) There's a huge uproar among players about it.

It's like once they got finished designing levels 1-59, they fired everyone who could learn from their own or other people's mistakes. Now there's just this hubris that whatever they do is right (i.e. see their insistance that all the servers are horde/alliance balanced), and the game turned into a weird copy of EQ and now some FPS CTF??? Yet they didn't play the FPS long enough to realize that no one has played the same CTF map over and over since 1995. (I just got UT 2004, so I'm really seeing that a bunch of maps is good.)

[HRose]

Because test servers mean JACK SHIT:

http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/storeroom/wow-repository/honor.gif

You get 664 Contribution Points if you return TWO flags.

But if you return all three and you win, you get 166.

What the fuck have they done for over a month if even the most GLARING of the bugs hasn't been solved?

[JamesL]

What the fuck have they done for over a month if even the most GLARING of the bugs hasn't been solved?

Feasting on money?

[Penny-Arcade]

[olaf]

Why is the scoreboard ranked by killing blows anyway? How fucking stupid.

The entire PvP scoring system is flawed IMO. Tanks dont get points for tanking, healers dont get points for healing. Why? Why is the system setup so that the easiest CP gain is that of solo DPS classes riding the coat tails of a balanced raid group working together?

olaf

[Mark Asher]

Why is the scoreboard ranked by killing blows anyway? How fucking stupid.

The entire PvP scoring system is flawed IMO. Tanks dont get points for tanking, healers dont get points for healing. Why? Why is the system setup so that the easiest CP gain is that of solo DPS classes riding the coat tails of a balanced raid group working together?

olaf

How would you score tanks tanking and healers healing? If your team is winning maybe your tanks aren't doing a lot tanking and your healers aren't doing much healing -- it would be weird if by losing tanks and healers got more points. And would an offensive spec tank get fewer points than a defensive spec tank if tanking was somehow calculated?

I don't even know how the scoring works. I just take it on faith that if I run around kill the enemy and my side wins the battle, I'm getting good CPs.

[Mark Asher]

Because test servers mean JACK SHIT:

You get 664 Contribution Points if you return TWO flags.

But if you return all three and you win, you get 166.

What the fuck have they done for over a month if even the most GLARING of the bugs hasn't been solved?

Maybe those 664 points are individual points for that guy getting the flag, and the 166 is what each member of the team gets for winning the game?

[Gourmand]

Because test servers mean JACK SHIT:

You get 664 Contribution Points if you return TWO flags.

But if you return all three and you win, you get 166.

What the fuck have they done for over a month if even the most GLARING of the bugs hasn't been solved?

Maybe those 664 points are individual points for that guy getting the flag, and the 166 is what each member of the team gets for winning the game?

Yeah, I don't understand Hrose's latest cataclysmic catass rave. I feel like the honor points for capturing and winning aren't exceptionally motivating factors. I agree with him there. At what point this broke the game, and became a showstopping bug confuses me.

I have complete faith that people will continue to capture flags rather than straight deathmatch just because winning in and of itself is pretty good fun. That's motivation enough for me.

[Ryan A]

I could be wrong, but as I look at HRose's screen cap, it seems to me that the guy who earned the most points is a significantly lower rank than the rest of the people. Don't you get disproportionately more points for killing somebody with a higher rank than if you kill somebody of equal or lesser rank to you? If so, maybe that extends to BG scoring. It would make sense.

[HRose]

Why is the scoreboard ranked by killing blows anyway? How fucking stupid.

The entire PvP scoring system is flawed IMO. Tanks dont get points for tanking, healers dont get points for healing. Why? Why is the system setup so that the easiest CP gain is that of solo DPS classes riding the coat tails of a balanced raid group working together?
I totally agree with you and I was forgetting to underline that.

The display should be interactive (so that you can sort it how the hell you like) and sorted by HK by default since all the active classes will get HKs no matter of their class.

About the points:
You are supposed to get 498 points for each flag returned.
Second time is 996 and then it's 1660.

1660 ALWAYS become 166 because the system is broken and noone at Blizzard cared to solve it after it was reported endlessly.

Now. HOW THE FUCK did that guy on my screenshot get 664 points?

It's simple. That guy came in after the match was already started and he assisted to the last two flag returns.

The first he got 498 points. Which was correct. 664 is the fucked up result of the third flag. Because instead of going to 996 he just got 498 + 166 = 664

Which is a further proof that this is most likely a broken system instead of just a display bug for points above 1000.

So. Want to get points from Warsong? Bail off the BG after you collected 2 flags. Thanks to Blizzard and their retarded bugs.

[Mark Asher]

So. Want to get points from Warsong? Bail off the BG after you collected 2 flags. Thanks to Blizzard and their retarded bugs.

But if you do that you don't win. It's more fun to win and beat those dastardly Alliance players than it is to min/max your CPs.

For the Horde!

[HRose]

guildmate of mine got 10 thousand+ points in about 2hrs last nite

21199 CP for 5 runs of Warsong winning 3 of them, not bad at all.

Man, wtf....

Guys from my guild are posting on our messageboard today, reporting the previous days CP totals.

Some won 3, some 9, none are getting more then a few thousand total CP on Stormreaver for yesterday.

How in the hell did you get 22k? I did 4 runs, won 2, and got just under 5k cp. One of the runs was extremely short, one was medium-length and the other 2 were quite long.

I got 700HK, in 25 wins and 1 loss and recieved 17,000CP. Something is borked.

lol
Well, the bonus can't be 1660 for winning then....

Or maybe it just isn't on Stormreaver

Yeah, our "Dream Team" won something like 17 CTF's in a row last night on Stormreaver and got less than 10k CP.

It's getting fun. Peoples are starting to see how "winning" is equal to "losing".

I guess after all this Kalgan will get another promotion or something. The industry works like a reversed mechanism, the more you are clueless the more you gain money and power.

[Andrew Mayer]

That must be very frustrating for the knowitalls who aren't part of the industry.

[olaf]

Why is the scoreboard ranked by killing blows anyway? How fucking stupid.

The entire PvP scoring system is flawed IMO. Tanks dont get points for tanking, healers dont get points for healing. Why? Why is the system setup so that the easiest CP gain is that of solo DPS classes riding the coat tails of a balanced raid group working together?

How would you score tanks tanking and healers healing? If your team is winning maybe your tanks aren't doing a lot tanking and your healers aren't doing much healing -- it would be weird if by losing tanks and healers got more points. And would an offensive spec tank get fewer points than a defensive spec tank if tanking was somehow calculated?

I don't even know how the scoring works. I just take it on faith that if I run around kill the enemy and my side wins the battle, I'm getting good CPs.
I am not a programmer, I have no idea. I just know that the current system is flawed. Like I said, the most effective CP generation is from a solo Mage following a balanced raid. That is stupid. Not to mention, tanks get punished for taking one for the team, or you know, doing their jobs.

One of the tactics we use as a guild, and I am sure a lot of people do this, is to have our tanks all charge at once, with healers backing them up. The Alliance will start pounding on the tanks, then our DPS rolls in and goes for their cloth. It almost always works as long as we are not too outnumbered. Inevitably, some of the tanks are gonna die in this push though. And they get no CP, because they are dead. But they were integral to the success of the action. What is more frustrating, to me, is that solo Mages/Hunters not even part of the 'team' are getting more CP than ANYONE in the raid by just following the mass and shooting anything that moves.

olaf

[Aephir]

Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just talks about the higher standard to which we hold the beautiful accountable

Oh, this must be why the Hollywood stars who commit crimes suffer from unreasonably harsh sentences.

Perhaps on a personal level, but as a society, the beautiful are generally revered by the masses.

Although, I do agree that people scream louder about Blizzard's getting 5% wrong than they do about say, B Company getting 30% wrong.

[Alan Dunkin]

maybe the honor display can only show the first three digits :)

--- Alan

[Malderi]

One of the tactics we use as a guild, and I am sure a lot of people do this, is to have our tanks all charge at once, with healers backing them up. The Alliance will start pounding on the tanks, then our DPS rolls in and goes for their cloth. It almost always works as long as we are not too outnumbered. Inevitably, some of the tanks are gonna die in this push though. And they get no CP, because they are dead. But they were integral to the success of the action. What is more frustrating, to me, is that solo Mages/Hunters not even part of the 'team' are getting more CP than ANYONE in the raid by just following the mass and shooting anything that moves.

Sounds remarkably similar to one of the primary reasons I quit my level 50 Mana Eldritch and Air Theurgist in DAOC - I'd always get targetted first, die first, and never get any RPs.

Ain't it wonderful how so very, very few companies ever learn from others simple design mistakes?

[solomani]

Because test servers mean JACK SHIT:


I retract all my previous statements of faith in Blizz!

[solomani]

One of the tactics we use as a guild, and I am sure a lot of people do this, is to have our tanks all charge at once, with healers backing them up. The Alliance will start pounding on the tanks, then our DPS rolls in and goes for their cloth. It almost always works as long as we are not too outnumbered. Inevitably, some of the tanks are gonna die in this push though. And they get no CP, because they are dead. But they were integral to the success of the action. What is more frustrating, to me, is that solo Mages/Hunters not even part of the 'team' are getting more CP than ANYONE in the raid by just following the mass and shooting anything that moves.

olaf

This restores my faith in the gullibility of humanity. This is the exact same tactic we used in DAOC and it never failed unless we were severely outnumbered.

Its also a classic military strategy - pin/distract the enemy then go for the flanks (or the weak spots in this case - the cloth).

[TitoLandrum]

I'd say the system is broken b/c I haven't even had a chance to play it. I've spent over 4 hours waiting in the queues the past 2 nights, only to get invite when I'm in the middle of an UBRS run. Sucks to be alliance.

[soundnfury]

the most effective CP generation is from a solo Mage following a balanced raid. That is stupid. Not to mention, tanks get punished for taking one for the team, or you know, doing their jobs.

It seems that the goal of the honor system should be to have each side work as a team, so maybe they should implement honor points based on proximity kills: whether you are grouped or not, if you are flagged for PVP and someone near you kills some bad guys, you share the points. (And I mean this should work irregardless of whether you did any damage to the bad guys.)

Yeah, a warrior could follow a mage around, leeching points, but it would really be in the warrior's interest to try to keep the mage alive. In fact, they could encourage healing by having a point penalty if you or an ally near you dies. (This might take some tweaking to avoid exploits, though.)

[Jaysun]

I'm having a blast in Alterac Valley. Last night Alliance summoned their treeman, we countered with our Ice Elemental. They faced off against one another of the Field of Strife and our Ice Elemental destroyed the Treeman! It was awesome watching these two gods duke it out in the middle of the battlefield.

I think I know what people's real problem is here... those whining play Alliance and are just pissed now that they are getting owned by Horde in Alterac Valley. ;)

[Rob O'Boston]

I'm having a blast in Alterac Valley. Last night Alliance summoned their treeman, we countered with our Ice Elemental. They faced off against one another of the Field of Strife and our Ice Elemental destroyed the Treeman! It was awesome watching these two gods duke it out in the middle of the battlefield.

I think I know what people's real problem is here... those whining play Alliance and are just pissed now that they are getting owned by Horde in Alterac Valley. ;)

FOR THE HORDE!

I was in a marathon wargulch battle last night. It went back and forth until it was tied 2-2 and then we stalemated for a long time. After a while we realized that the Alliance strategy was to keep 9 guards in their flag room and to send their highest lvl rogue (40) out to steal our flag. This was not a particularly threatening strategy. So we started experimenting with different techniques to break in, using 8 of our 10 guys. We used a couple of different tricks that would get the flag out onto the yard, such as one druid feinting a snatch and then running and a hidden druid grabbing it when the crowd moved into the halls. We also PWSed a warlock. We kept getting the flag a little further and finally we had stretched out their team all over the map when finally one of our guys made a grab when the flag reappeared back at their base.

The result was one long running battle across the map with our team throwing down snares and roots and stuns and freezes, while their team ran like mad. When we finally won on that last try I cheered at the top of my lungs.

[playingwithknives]

I'd say the system is broken b/c I haven't even had a chance to play it. I've spent over 4 hours waiting in the queues the past 2 nights, only to get invite when I'm in the middle of an UBRS run. Sucks to be alliance.

Its the opposite for me, offpeak saw 20 horde v 40 alliance, and peak managing low 30s v 40. This is the day after BG was introduced, what it will be like in a few weeks i wonder, our imbalance of roughly 3:1 has never been more noticeable.

[olaf]

Shaman seem godly as CTF flag runners. Earthbind totems to get out of the base then Ghost Wolf coupled with the PvP armor that boosts its speed is just too much. They probably need to change it so that you cant carry flags in travel forms.

I have done about 10 CTF matches and the Alliance has never even scored on us lol.

olaf

[Jaysun]

The Alliance you fight must suck then because everytime I do CTF, the cheesy ass paladins run in, grab the flag, shield themselves and run away. Then they get their paladin and priest buddies to continue to shield them all the way to their base for the cap. It doesn't work everytime, but it is annoying when it works and they continue to utilize such a lame tactic.

[Rob O'Boston]

Shaman seem godly as CTF flag runners. Earthbind totems to get out of the base then Ghost Wolf coupled with the PvP armor that boosts its speed is just too much. They probably need to change it so that you cant carry flags in travel forms.

I have done about 10 CTF matches and the Alliance has never even scored on us lol.

olaf

Are you positive that shamans can carry the flag in ghost wolf form? I hope they can, but I heard from a shaman that they can't.

[Duality]

They definitely can. That was the strategy we used in a battle I just completed.

As an arms/fury spec warrior, its going to be tough for me to figure out what my job is. Do I just run interception wherever I can? Intercept/Charge are great for that first attack, assuming they don't outrun me. But its real easy for most other classes to get enough distance between us. If I'm going to be dealing killing blows, I usually need a druid or mage on-hand to keep them still.

I've only done one battle (which, thankfully, we won), and none with my main's guild. I can see that strategy is necessary, even for the Horde. Its not as easy as assuming the Alliance will always lose like many players seem to believe.

[Rob O'Boston]

The alliance does seem profusely efficient at losing so far. :D

[olaf]

In my experience, Warriors excel at playing midfield in the CTF game. Roam between the bases looking to enemy flag capturing parties or to slow enemies pursuing your own flag carrier. Charge/Intercept/Hamstring/Piercing Howl are all hugely effective here.

H

[Destarius]

My hunter traps are coming into their own as a defender in Warsong Gulch. There's nothing to really frustrate a flag grab than a freeze trap, effectively pinning said flag grabber for 10 yards. 10 very, very painful yards while I conc. shot then close in and wingclip him, while the rest of my team proceeds to cut him down. A well-placed explosive trap can also seriously injure an incoming team of Alliance.

And hunters can be incredibly annoying to casters. While I'm busy handing DoTs to warriors, I'm viper-stinging casters and siccing pets on them. I don't even try to kill casters after a while, just keep them running long enough so that they can't contribute, while I spam multishot into the inevitable paladin/warrior melee that erupts when both sides clash.

[Sean Tudor]

Bravo to those that have actually played BG's. None of my guild has been able to get into the Battleground's. The timer never seems to go down. I'm not sure what sort of magic wand I need to wave to actually get into a BG or maybe I need to bribe a GM.

:x

[Brian Koontz]

I also have been unable to get into BG. A friend told me that he's seen the problem before and I merely have to reinstall the game and then redownload the patches. Ugh... I've been playing around with disabling some mods (I figured disabling Cosmos would have the best chance of success) without effect.

[olaf]

On Suramar the Alterac Valley BG is pretty much dead. It takes WAY too long (the end bases are just ridiculously entrenched) and the CP there sucks badly compared to Warsong.

olaf

[HRose]

Old message from Mark Asher (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=244386#244386):
One of the things they might be able to do with instanced battlegrounds is draw upon all the servers to fill them. Instead of requiring enough level 25-30 Alliance players on one server, that instanced battleground will be filled with Alliance players from all the servers.

If they do something like that they shouldn't have any problems with low population instances.
As you can see there's someone who already anticipated that and even suggested a solution.

Of course Blizzard didn't anticipate these problems, which brings to the reply I wrote back then if you scroll the thread:
Well, really, it's a great idea that opens even more possibilities. I don't think Blizzard will experiment and innovate this much.

[JM]

No problems getting onto BG at peak-time for me...

[HRose]

Who wants to bet that the next step will be the possibility to enter the BGs no matter where you are?

[Mark Asher]

Mythic and Blizzard took two different stances with instanced battlegrounds. Mythic lets everyone in and the result is often an unbalanced experience and Blizzard artificially balances the battle by limiting access.

I don't know if there's a way to provide a balanced battle AND have no queues. Even if you drew upon all the servers to fill battlegrounds, if one side has more willing players than the other, you're going to have people waiting.

I don't really see how you can let one side fight its own players as a possible solution and still hand out honor kills. Maybe they could fight just for fun, but you can't have players fighting their own side for honor. That's too open to abuse.

[HRose]

I don't know if there's a way to provide a balanced battle AND have no queues. Even if you drew upon all the servers to fill battlegrounds, if one side has more willing players than the other, you're going to have people waiting.
Because there are two different problems.

The first is about the load balance between the servers and that would go for the most part if they draw players from all the servers.

The second is the factional balance that is going to be hard to solve now. You cannot ignore these problems for so long.

[Chowhound]

Even if they drew from all and every server...

Wouldn't there still be more Alliance players than Horde? So you'd still have to wait for enough Horde to play.

[Rywill]

Yeah, my impression is that it's not like there's too many Alliance on one server and too many Horde on the other. It's too many Alliance everywhere, from what people are saying. I noticed that on Frostwolf, even when there are what look to be 50-100 Alliance players just hanging out near the AV entrance, there's still only one instance and a 2-3 hour wait. Maybe that's because running more than one copy of the instance is giving them problems, though. I find it hard to believe there are fewer than 60 Horde who want to play Alterac at any given time.

But if it IS just that there aren't enough Horde players to fill two instances, that very much belies Blizzard's claim that on PvP servers the populations are balanced. I thought FW was pretty even, but maybe I'm mistaken.

[Mark Asher]

Frostwolf, according to that mod that does some kind of census, is about 1.6:1 in favor of Alliance.

Mythic had population imbalance issues with DAoC as well. I don't think there's an easy way to fix these problems without restricting players in some way. I believe Mythic used various incentives to try to fix some of the imbalance issues, but I don't know how well it worked.

[Lunch of Kong]

Give all Horde players free mounts starting at level 20. That'll get the Horde population up really quick.

[Mark Asher]

I don't know if there's a way to provide a balanced battle AND have no queues. Even if you drew upon all the servers to fill battlegrounds, if one side has more willing players than the other, you're going to have people waiting.
Because there are two different problems.

The first is about the load balance between the servers and that would go for the most part if they draw players from all the servers.

The second is the factional balance that is going to be hard to solve now. You cannot ignore these problems for so long.

Perhaps you can't ignore them, but in case of population balance, I'm not sure how you fix it. And if you can't fix it, you're going to either have to live with queues for the battlegrounds or allow the battleground fights to be imbalanced.

[solomani]

Frostwolf, according to that mod that does some kind of census, is about 1.6:1 in favor of Alliance.

Mythic had population imbalance issues with DAoC as well. I don't think there's an easy way to fix these problems without restricting players in some way. I believe Mythic used various incentives to try to fix some of the imbalance issues, but I don't know how well it worked.

Any idea what these incentives were? Must of been after I left.

I think drawing people from all servers is still a better idea than server limiting them. Instead of having unbalanced BG on all 100+ servers you would end up having every instance of BG a balanced competition except the last one. This would mean that for the vast majority of players for the majority of their game time in BG it would be a balanced battle with little chance of waiting.

I can't think of any technical limitation to do this. But I don't know how Blizz works their servers.

[HRose]

Perhaps you can't ignore them, but in case of population balance, I'm not sure how you fix it. And if you can't fix it, you're going to either have to live with queues for the battlegrounds or allow the battleground fights to be imbalanced.
There are ways. Many different ways. The best one is to plan the structure so that it works. I wrote a suggestion of a plan that works and Jeff Freeman wrote another hypothetical one.

I just say that if there's the will there are also ways to go there.

So there's a way to fix this at the roots by planning the structure of the game in an appropriate way (Guild Wars, agan, doesn't have ANY of these problems). Then there's another way to fix that is about the gameplay itself.

It's not necessary to have a "balanced" environment. In fact I strongly believe that is possible to deliver the fun through unbalanced situations. Back in April of the last years I brought up ideas on how to deliver this in DAoC and I still stand by them.

But again the point IS NOT about "how". Because there are really MANY ways to address the problem. The point is to foresee and develop the game after being aware that these problems will exist and will be severe. You cannot shrug them off with an excuse. Or say that there's no possible fix and so nothing can be done.

Mythic's solutions have been inconsistent exactly because they are bandaids to the consequences of these problems. And, in fact, they solve nothing if not a temporary, light improvement.

[solomani]

Perhaps you can't ignore them, but in case of population balance, I'm not sure how you fix it. And if you can't fix it, you're going to either have to live with queues for the battlegrounds or allow the battleground fights to be imbalanced.
There are ways. Many different ways. The best one is to plan the structure so that it works. I wrote a suggestion of a plan that works and Jeff Freeman wrote another hypothetical one.

I just say that if there's the will there are also ways to go there.

So there's a way to fix this at the roots by planning the structure of the game in an appropriate way (Guild Wars, agan, doesn't have ANY of these problems). Then there's another way to fix that is about the gameplay itself.

It's not necessary to have a "balanced" environment. In fact I strongly believe that is possible to deliver the fun through unbalanced situations. Back in April of the last years I brought up ideas on how to deliver this in DAoC and I still stand by them.

But again the point IS NOT about "how". Because there are really MANY ways to address the problem. The point is to foresee and develop the game after being aware that these problems will exist and will be severe. You cannot shrug them off with an excuse. Or say that there's no possible fix and so nothing can be done.

Mythic's solutions have been inconsistent exactly because they are bandaids to the consequences of these problems. And, in fact, they solve nothing if not a temporary, light improvement.

I get the impression that HRose is just as frustrated as I am when it comes to how Blizz is basically re-inventing the wheel when it comes to launching and managing a MMO.

They are making the SAME mistakes that EQ1 did when it was launched. Its like the last 6 years didn't happen.

I don't know if this is arrogance or just bad management or a combination of both.

I love the game still its just crazy how they are handling things.

[Brian Koontz]

As a solution to the factional imbalance, the Battlegrounds could be uneven (say 10 Alliance to 8 Horde at Warsong Gulch) but the Horde could get NPC helpers or some other form of assistance.

I fixed my entry problems by removing the FrameXML folder inside my Interface folder. I've done three pickup Warsong Gulch groups now, and we've lost 3-0 each time.

Sometimes I think the Alliance is all about doing PvE Instances and the Horde is all about doing PvP. It also doesn't help that Paladins fucking suck for this sort of thing (they suck for everything but Soloing and PvE instances) and according to a few people I talked to they *cannot* put on their invincibility shield while carrying the flag.

I'm getting plenty of kills though, so I'm happy.

Mages, Priests, and Shamans all seem very powerful in Warsong Gulch. Mages might be the best, with their aoe, counterspell, slow, blink (making them nice flag carriers), and high DPS.

[agriffith]

I hate the BG's. Actually, I just hate playing my Warlock and the BG's just make the class even less attractive. I had hoped BG's would bring the fun factor back for me, but it has actually had the opposite effect.

[Sean Tudor]

I hate the BG's. Actually, I just hate playing my Warlock and the BG's just make the class even less attractive. I had hoped BG's would bring the fun factor back for me, but it has actually had the opposite effect.

I have finally managed to get in to Battlegrounds. And oh boy what fun it is.

I play a 60 warlock and am having no major problems. I racked up over 2000 honour points in a 2 hour session simply by casting AOE's and DOT's. Of course my Talent spec is 100% Affliction so that definitely helps. I also recommend using Souldrain as it has an extreme range for damaging the enemy.

Best tactic I have found to break the Horde for the rest of the team is to have my void out, cast Sacrifice, then run into the middle of their pack and cast How Of Terror. Lot's of confusion and I die 90% of the time but it's enough to help my team break a Horde line for the charge.

And dying in BG's is so painless it isn't an issue.

[Mark Asher]

Perhaps you can't ignore them, but in case of population balance, I'm not sure how you fix it. And if you can't fix it, you're going to either have to live with queues for the battlegrounds or allow the battleground fights to be imbalanced.
There are ways. Many different ways. The best one is to plan the structure so that it works. I wrote a suggestion of a plan that works and Jeff Freeman wrote another hypothetical one.

I just say that if there's the will there are also ways to go there.

So there's a way to fix this at the roots by planning the structure of the game in an appropriate way (Guild Wars, agan, doesn't have ANY of these problems). Then there's another way to fix that is about the gameplay itself.

It's not necessary to have a "balanced" environment. In fact I strongly believe that is possible to deliver the fun through unbalanced situations. Back in April of the last years I brought up ideas on how to deliver this in DAoC and I still stand by them.

But again the point IS NOT about "how". Because there are really MANY ways to address the problem. The point is to foresee and develop the game after being aware that these problems will exist and will be severe. You cannot shrug them off with an excuse. Or say that there's no possible fix and so nothing can be done.

Mythic's solutions have been inconsistent exactly because they are bandaids to the consequences of these problems. And, in fact, they solve nothing if not a temporary, light improvement.

I'm not saying it's an impossible problem, but I haven't seen any solution yet that will both allow for players to play whatever side they want, always have balanced battles, and never have to wait in queue.

If you know the answer to this and can summarize it in a paragraph or two, please feel free to do so. So far I don't think any game has solved it, although I haven't played Guild Wars enough to know if that's the case for it. Guild Wars doesn't have factions though, does it? There's no "Horde" or "Alliance" is there?

And while I think that drawing on all the servers to fill battlegrounds matches would help with some of the queue problems, the game would lose something by doing this. There are server rivalries that develop. For instance, on Frostwolf the Alliance guild Vicious Cycles is universally hated by Horde players. It's fun to take down their guild leader, Stewball. It's like slaying Sauron. Killing his heal slut Taunie is also a good time.

[solomani]

I hate the BG's. Actually, I just hate playing my Warlock and the BG's just make the class even less attractive. I had hoped BG's would bring the fun factor back for me, but it has actually had the opposite effect.

My friend, I hate to say this, but Warlocks suck. They need the most attention out of all the classes. Which it seems they are getting as they have been buffed the last two patches.

My friend played a warlock to 60 and then tried a mage (who is 56 now) and he could not believe the difference between the classes - fun faction, speed to level, soloability, group contribution etc. As he said its faster to play a trinity class and level to 60 then to stick with a broken class ...

[solomani]

There are server rivalries that develop. For instance, on Frostwolf the Alliance guild Vicious Cycles is universally hated by Horde players. It's fun to take down their guild leader, Stewball. It's like slaying Sauron. Killing his heal slut Taunie is also a good time.

What did they do to be hated so passionetly?

[Mark Asher]

There are server rivalries that develop. For instance, on Frostwolf the Alliance guild Vicious Cycles is universally hated by Horde players. It's fun to take down their guild leader, Stewball. It's like slaying Sauron. Killing his heal slut Taunie is also a good time.

What did they do to be hated so passionetly?

They just kill Horde on sight and usually travel in a large group looking for Horde to gank. In other words, they are more active in the pursuit of PvP than most.

I also enjoy killing Legends and MyElf guildies, and then there are names of players I recognize from PvP that I like to kill, like an Alliance dwarf named Brom. Some annoying little gnomes constantly need killing too.

[Ryan A]

In fairness, judging by the WoW forums, it seems VC and this Stewball character are pretty much hated by the rest of the Alliance as well...

[Mark Asher]

In fairness, judging by the WoW forums, it seems VC and this Stewball character are pretty much hated by the rest of the Alliance as well...

I'll give Stewball credit. He's a hard little fucker to kill. I bet he has 5000 HPs unbuffed, and of course he's always buffed to the teeth. He has uber gear from PvP rewards and MC, etc., and he has his girlfriend Taunie (I think she's his girlfriend) following him around in game healing him constantly. Stewball's a warrior and Taunie's a priest, btw.

I did hear of one group of Horde who supposedly tormented Stewballfor several minutes, almost killing him and then sheeping him, which makes him heal to full, and then almost killing him again and then sheeping again. Rinse and repeat.

I don't know if this story is true or apocrophyal, but it makes me smile.

[Duality]

Sometimes I think the Alliance is all about doing PvE Instances and the Horde is all about doing PvP.
I suppose it depends on the server. On KJ, the top Horde guilds are the only ones to have taken down Ragnaros.

It also doesn't help that Paladins fucking suck for this sort of thing (they suck for everything but Soloing and PvE instances) and according to a few people I talked to they *cannot* put on their invincibility shield while carrying the flag.
No, but when the enemy flag carrier is Mind Controlled, they can put their shield on that person and make them drop it.

Dirty, but becoming a common tactic, apparently.

[solomani]

I'll give Stewball credit. He's a hard little fucker to kill. I bet he has 5000 HPs unbuffed, and of course he's always buffed to the teeth. He has uber gear from PvP rewards and MC, etc., and he has his girlfriend Taunie (I think she's his girlfriend) following him around in game healing him constantly. Stewball's a warrior and Taunie's a priest, btw.


Out of interest why don't you just kill the priestess first? Or it isnt that simple?

[Stroker Ace]

I'm not saying it's an impossible problem, but I haven't seen any solution yet that will both allow for players to play whatever side they want, always have balanced battles, and never have to wait in queue.

If you know the answer to this and can summarize it in a paragraph or two, please feel free to do so. So far I don't think any game has solved it, although I haven't played Guild Wars enough to know if that's the case for it. Guild Wars doesn't have factions though, does it? There's no "Horde" or "Alliance" is there?

dynamic map generation? like say the small team defends a castle with variable chokepoints that scale based on the size of the opposing force?

i doubt that would carry an entire game but it's at least one gametype.

[Sebmolo]

at a guess because then the warrior rips you a new one. Warrior / Priest is a powerful combination if they're used to working together.

So is mage/priest, actually - I've been having a fine time with my mage buddy on that combo.

[solomani]

at a guess because then the warrior rips you a new one. Warrior / Priest is a powerful combination if they're used to working together.

So is mage/priest, actually - I've been having a fine time with my mage buddy on that combo.

Interesting. This dynamic didn't work in DAOC since warriors were the usual MMO blah of low DPS/High Defense so it was difficul to protect the healer. I forgot that DPS warrior can dish out loads of damage in WOW.

I have not done any BG yet but it sounds fun. My wife decided to play after my hunter hit 60 so we are 51 with the new toons - warrior/priest. We have played together in this combo for years in different games and play in the same room so that should make RvR even more fun.

Thanks.

[Sebmolo]

Some excellent advice on Warsong CTF here (http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6098).

[Mark Asher]

I'll give Stewball credit. He's a hard little fucker to kill. I bet he has 5000 HPs unbuffed, and of course he's always buffed to the teeth. He has uber gear from PvP rewards and MC, etc., and he has his girlfriend Taunie (I think she's his girlfriend) following him around in game healing him constantly. Stewball's a warrior and Taunie's a priest, btw.


Out of interest why don't you just kill the priestess first? Or it isnt that simple?

It's not just the two of them, it's a whole raid group of VC players. But yeah, we do target the healers first when we can.

[Duality]

Some excellent advice on Warsong CTF here (http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6098).
There's a lot of good advice that I wish Horde would take heed of.

- the flag is more important than the players. Keep moving towards your objective at virtually any time except when you're regrouping
I was in a match last night where the raid lead -- a rogue -- would take their flag after two caps and then go ahead and farm CP! In the mean time, the alliance mounted an offense and kept grabbing our flag.

This imbalance, whether brought about by player (in)ability or technical/design issues, is making Warsong utterly unplayable. If the majority of the Alliance team doesn't just outright leave in the middle of the match, then the asshole Horde players just go CP farming and more or less do everything they can to continue to drive the Alliance players away.

Absolutely infuriating for someone who grew up on Quake/Tribes CTF.

[Brian Koontz]

This imbalance, whether brought about by player (in)ability or technical/design issues, is making Warsong utterly unplayable. If the majority of the Alliance team doesn't just outright leave in the middle of the match, then the asshole Horde players just go CP farming and more or less do everything they can to continue to drive the Alliance players away.

I don't think this is a problem. Its just good sense to CP farm... that's what the Battlegrounds are all about anyway (winning is only valuable insofar as it means additional CPs... it all comes down to the CPs and not to winning).

An easy way to combat this is to put the Battlegrounds on a timer... the team that is ahead at the end of the time wins. If its tied then the team with the most flag grabs wins.

[Duality]

It may be good sense for someone who's sole interest is in PvP rank, but its insulting to the other team.

Its no surprise the Alliance in the 41-50 bracket keep dropping out before the match is complete if all that's going to happen is further humiliation while the flag carrier comes back to wail on them.

There's a problem that's not being addressed and the majority of Horde players, in my limited experience, are being utter assholes in not even acknowledging that fact.

[DeepT]

The whole idea of capture the flag in WoW is totally absurd. I do not mean the implementation, just the idea. Here they have crafted a world where there is this big war, contested territory, the forsaken making a new plague, the burning legon are gaining a foothold again, and the Silthilus are a major threat to the entire world. They have all this lore about everything going on.

And then, we have capture the flag. Exactly *how* does getting a flag advance either side's goals? In Altaric, you can argue its a strategic place, a territory that really *is* contested and in 50 years it could clearly be owned by alliance or horde either pushing the front line closer or further from the undercity. It makes sense. But grabbing a flag 3 times? WTF! Its just a stupid, stupid idea.

[Ryan A]

The whole idea of capture the flag in WoW is totally absurd.

Think of it as the Olympics during the Cold War.

[HRose]

One month later... they noticed (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=3693221&P=2). LOL

Why are people getting this misconception that you earn 1660 for winning a Warsong? Look at the scoreboard, it says 49 for first capture, 99 for second capture, and for winning you get 166, meaning you either get the addition of all 3, or 166.
That is not the proper honor reward. The correct honor is 1660 for the level 51-60 bracket.

We're looking into the display issue.
There is a display issue. It's showing 166 instead of 1660.

There is another issue - you are not being awarded 1660.
My apologies. I was and am aware it is more than merely a display problem, but I was posting rather quickly. :/

The database folks are investigating why honor is not being correctly distributed.

[olaf]

Suramar was getting the correct CP bonus the first week after the patch. Even though the display said 166, looking at my honor totals the day after, I was getting about 2k per win.

Then next week, after the maintenance, we were not getting the bonus honor, at least not 1660.

There are apparently big time ranking bugs now too. There are threads on the general forum showing players that went from rank 10 to 14, jumping people they should not have. Other stories about people being stuck at a given rank for weeks despite constant improvement, etc.

olaf

[dannimal]

And yet, even with the HRosian nightmare of "diminished returns" and the fact that you're not getting the right (less than you should) amount for captures/winning, people still get more CPs from BG than straight PVP (on average).

Ayup, a total disaster. Even broken it does what it's supposed to.

[JamesL]

In fairness, judging by the WoW forums, it seems VC and this Stewball character are pretty much hated by the rest of the Alliance as well...

I'll give Stewball credit. He's a hard little fucker to kill. I bet he has 5000 HPs unbuffed, and of course he's always buffed to the teeth. He has uber gear from PvP rewards and MC, etc., and he has his girlfriend Taunie (I think she's his girlfriend) following him around in game healing him constantly. Stewball's a warrior and Taunie's a priest, btw.

I did hear of one group of Horde who supposedly tormented Stewballfor several minutes, almost killing him and then sheeping him, which makes him heal to full, and then almost killing him again and then sheeping again. Rinse and repeat.

I don't know if this story is true or apocrophyal, but it makes me smile.

This whole thing in general makes me smile - I love that kind of stuff, where two people on a particular server have become so annoying/evil that they've actually earned an interesting reputation players know them by.

[Sebmolo]

Now this is interesting, if true: From the Lurker Lounge (http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6133&pid=81304&mode=threaded&show=&st=&#entry81304).


Got a bit of a scoop from a GM friend: The Blizzard developers are actively working on linking the battlegrounds from different realms to one another. That way, there will be a much larger pool of players playing in the BG's. So, players on low-population servers will no longer be punished for playing on low population servers. Also, even those players who are on high population servers will have many more BG instances to choose from. Heck, maybe guilds will be able to make large raids and enter the BG's as a group? One can hope. Anyway, this is something that they're almost done with. They're just working on how to deal with naming conflicts and other such issues.

Hmmm... just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if that means there will be a cross-realm economy developing soon.

By the way, the GM friend didn't say, but I would guess that one would only play against other realms of the same type. That is, if one played on a PvP server, then one would only fight against players on other PvP servers, and so on.

[Clark]

WoW has done so many things right - class balance, class utility, many different viable group set-ups, beautiful graphics and interface, and the best PvE I've seen (and I hate PvE). But the BGs blow chunks.

Went back and played a night of DAOC on my old toon (abandoned since ToA came out), and DAOC has hands-down a far superior group-oriented PvP design. Yeah, it's got problems, but you cannot get anything close in WoW to the frequency and dynamics of 8-8 fights there (at least not yet).

[Mark Asher]

I really enjoy the big fights in Alterac Valley. It's exciting making a push to capture a graveyard, and then rallying to defend one.

Clark, how did you manage to get 8v8 fights in DAoC? My experience is that usually at least one of the three realms was badly outnumbered in the BGs in that game.

[Clark]

It wasn't 8-8 in the daoc BGs, it was in the frontier. Old news to most people, but new to me, it was interesting the way they redesigned the frontier, especially the ability to instantly post between SF/VF, and many of the frontier keeps. That meant getting back in the action fast. There were many groups out, and we had some fun, and even fights. WoW was never that way - we tried to run 5-mans in Searing gorge/BRM/BS, but mostly what you fight are zergs going to MC/BRS, chinese farmers, and noobs going to BRM. At least on Bleeding Hollow, there were almost no Alliance 5-mans out. And that was before BGs, which completely eliminated organized PvP outside of BGs (unless you count the hours we spent camping the alliance entrances to warsong/alterac).

Sure, Alterac was fun for a bit, and I stuck with it longer than most in my guild. But there is a lot of fighting guards, a lot of hot rezzing/GY rushing, and a lot of bugs pulling every guard from the main camps. What fun is it when dying is often better than living since you come back with full health/mana? It just seems that if Bliz put 10% of the effort into end game PvP that they put into all the graphics and quests and class utility, it would be a much better game (and I would not have canceled my account). I am sure they will figure it out eventually.

[Mark Asher]

Warsong is 10v10 -- your guild didn't like that? No guards either.

When you die in Alterac you come back with about 2/3rds health, btw.

[Clark]

Well, after trying for a week, we got all 10 in one instance of warsong once. Hour+ long queues make for no fun. Anyway, I find the objectives sort of boring. In Warsong, you get all sorts of hotrezzing and killing people is often bad (since they come back full health/mana - btw, I always seemed to come back full health in aterac too). People will grab the flag and hide it, and you spend 20 minutes looking for their gd flag. And if you are fighting a PUG, it's a sad joke, and it's over in 5 minutes. And if you are in a PUG versus a organized group in vent.....

The first couple times I tried it, I thought it was a blast even in disorganized PUGs. But it seemed to get pretty stale pretty fast. I think I would much prefer a last-man-standing sort of instance. Even then, I kinda like the excitement of roaming and never knowing who or how many you will see over the next ridge. And developing rivalries with good enemies (which will never happen on Bleeding Hollow either under the current setting or the new one mentioned above).

Just my preference. I am sure Bliz will work out something to get me to reactivate. It only took Mythic 2 years to realize people hate ToA.....

[Lunch of Kong]

Alterac Valley is dead on Stormrage server. There hasn't been an AV game in almost a week.

It's all the fault of the queuing system that won't seat partial raid parties. The tetris on either side never fits quite right, so the game never starts.

After a few days of that, people gave up on it, and now the only PVP is warsong gulch.

[HRose]

It's still not over (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/840).

[dwinn]

I can tell you that the way the game generates Fun Points is working great -- I played both Alterac and Warsong for the first time ever this week and had a blast.

[HRose]

I can tell you that the way the game generates Fun Points is working great -- I played both Alterac and Warsong for the first time ever this week and had a blast.
Those "Fun Points" you speak about are subject to "diminished returns" as well.

You'll notice pretty soon.

[dwinn]

:roll:

[Munky]

If you were having fun, obviously you weren't playing the game in the correct manner.

[Lunch of Kong]

We've got around the "no AV" situation by coordinating games with the horde side on sharede ventrilo servers. We've had AV games for the past 4 days. Heck, some of our players are even exhalted with stormpike now, and have all the neat purple gear.

I don't know if I'll ever hit Field Marshal, though. I'm half-way through Knight-Captain, and I doubt I'll see Knight Champion for another two weeks unless I'm suddently unemployed and have nothing better to do than to catass for honor points.

[Graeme Dice]

Those "Fun Points" you speak about are subject to "diminished returns" as well.

If you only are interested in PVP for the contribution points, then no system to keep track of them and reqard you for how many you have will ever interest you in the long term. If the underlying mechanics of the PVP aren't fun for you, then aren't you simply fooling yourself into thinking that you are having fun as you watch a number go up?

[mouselock]

We've got around the "no AV" situation by coordinating games with the horde side on sharede ventrilo servers. We've had AV games for the past 4 days. Heck, some of our players are even exhalted with stormpike now, and have all the neat purple gear.

It's cool that you figured out a way to fix the problem, but in this case I think HRose's assertion that this is messed up seems reasonably well founded. You actually have to schedule time to play with other people on the other side of a PvP battlefield? This doesn't strike you as cumbersome at the least? (If not completely backasswards?) I thought the draw of an MMO was that there were always all these random people around that made the game feel more alive. (Though I suppose scheduling a war might make the game feel more alive if you were British; doing things properly and all that. ;) )

[mouselock]

Those "Fun Points" you speak about are subject to "diminished returns" as well.

If you only are interested in PVP for the contribution points, then no system to keep track of them and reqard you for how many you have will ever interest you in the long term. If the underlying mechanics of the PVP aren't fun for you, then aren't you simply fooling yourself into thinking that you are having fun as you watch a number go up?

It's seemed pretty clear for a while that HRose is a powergame type who has some real cognitive dissonance going on. However, I would submit that there are many, many people who play MMOs that are the powergamer type, for whom the fun is, indeed, how many points you earn. Whole swathes of the game are built for such people.* I think it's pretty fair for him to criticize something for completely breaking that aspect of the game for an entire playstyle. (I.e. the battlegrounds siphon off the normal PvPers, but then screw up the points, so the power PvPers have nowhere to go to grind out their points.)

*Anyone who claims that chunks of the game aren't entirely devoted to this mindset obviously hasn't done the same raid repeatedly until all 40 people who go along finally get the uber gear they're looking for. At which point they can move up to raiding for the next uber gear. The entire "endgame" exists almost exclusively for such people, so Blizzard clearly cares about them, know they exist, and is trying to attract them.

[HRose]

My remark about the "fun points" is completely detached from the actual Honor points not updating. It was just sarcasm.

I was just saying that both Alterac and Warsong lose their novelty rather quickly and after the first few days they become rather boring and repetitive. So the fun is subject to "diminished returns" because the more you play the less you you have fun. This because of the dull and repetitive gameplay and not because the points aren't updated properly.

I was commenting the fun on its own, not the treadmill.

That said, I was wrong. After the last patch this month the points are finally updating correctly. The points I didn't receive the other day got splitted between two different days and showed up in the stats today. So what I saw was just a minor glitch in the Honor tab.

Too much alarmism on my side.

[Dave Weinstein]

If "Capture the Flag" style gameplay is inherently something that becomes rapidly boring, how do you explain the long term success of the equivalent game modes in FPS games?

Personally, I spend most of my playing time in Warsong Gulch, and haven't had a problem getting "bored". Why? Because the game play itself is inherently interesting and enjoyable.

It actually makes me enjoy the rest of the game environment more, because successes in the PvE environment and acquisitions of new gear have direct benefits in the PvP CTF environment.

So, for me at least, it is clearly working correctly "as designed".

--Dave

[JamesL]

If "Capture the Flag" style gameplay is inherently something that becomes rapidly boring, how do you explain the long term success of the equivalent game modes in FPS games?

Personally, I spend most of my playing time in Warsong Gulch, and haven't had a problem getting "bored". Why? Because the game play itself is inherently interesting and enjoyable.

It actually makes me enjoy the rest of the game environment more, because successes in the PvE environment and acquisitions of new gear have direct benefits in the PvP CTF environment.

So, for me at least, it is clearly working correctly "as designed".

--Dave

I think what other people are trying to say is that, in a game where there's a huge, long, complicated (and interesting) history of war, capture the flag seems like a cop-out.

[HRose]

If "Capture the Flag" style gameplay is inherently something that becomes rapidly boring, how do you explain the long term success of the equivalent game modes in FPS games?
I think the opposite is happening.

From a side the CTF is still more fun, better planned and suitable for a game that isn't persistent and was built upon those goals. While the strengths of a mmorpg are definitely in other, more complex, models where the persistence is used to create a Virtual World that is able to offer a completely different experience.

If I play a mmorpg it's because I don't expect a first person shooter and it's a shame that most of the mmorpgs today are just combat simulations without incorporating other elements.

But what I notice is exactly the opposite of what you state. I see the FPS progressively leaving behind the "simpler" models of deatmatches and CTFs to go toward more semi-persistent complex environents.

In fact today what is popular is Battlefield 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004.

And it's not a case that UT2006 will further develop its own structure to incorporate even more of those semi-persistent elements that it started to include and improve.

[Mark Asher]

If "Capture the Flag" style gameplay is inherently something that becomes rapidly boring, how do you explain the long term success of the equivalent game modes in FPS games?

Personally, I spend most of my playing time in Warsong Gulch, and haven't had a problem getting "bored". Why? Because the game play itself is inherently interesting and enjoyable.

It actually makes me enjoy the rest of the game environment more, because successes in the PvE environment and acquisitions of new gear have direct benefits in the PvP CTF environment.

So, for me at least, it is clearly working correctly "as designed".

--Dave

I think what other people are trying to say is that, in a game where there's a huge, long, complicated (and interesting) history of war, capture the flag seems like a cop-out.

CTF mode is just an optional PvP arena in which to play. If players feel it's jarring from a backstory point of view or some kind of cop-out, they can ignore it. Alterac Valley plays much more like a war, and on the PvP servers you can fight just about anywhere.

[mtkafka]

I want housing and carpentry. I want to make some chairs for a lil condo for my characters!

etc

[playingwithknives]

[quote="Mark Asher
CTF mode is just an optional PvP arena in which to play. If players feel it's jarring from a backstory point of view or some kind of cop-out, they can ignore it. [/quote]

My server has PVP in Warsong Gulch only. Choice? What choice.

AV hasnt had enough people on each side to start since a few weeks after its release, its completly deserted. The new PVP additions on servers with 4:1 alliance:horde ratio's just dont work. Its a design flaw that they havent even acknowledged. Its not unique to my server either. The UK mag PC Zones 3 page review of Battlegrounds devoted 2 pages to comments on queuing and the fact the side imbalance screws everything up.

[Duality]

If "Capture the Flag" style gameplay is inherently something that becomes rapidly boring, how do you explain the long term success of the equivalent game modes in FPS games?
Because FPS games don't have a set pool of players to play against. Sure, you get server regulars, but by and large, most players are random thanks to server polling software like GameSpy/All-Seeing Eye.

On my server, there's one largely dominant Alliance guild that plays. When Horde join the queue, they have a 50-50 chance of hitting that team, or Alliance pick-up (often, not even having that chance). Now normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but because this group uses nothing but MC-BoP, or MCs players out of the instance, players have next to no incentive to bother anymore.